Auditioning For A Laugh Clowning Proves To Be Hard Work

January 20, 1985|BY ROBIN BRANCH, COLUMNIST

If ever there was an easy question, it would be, ``What`s your favorite circus animal?`` right?

I would have thought so, too. But there I was, starring under the spotlights in Ring 2, circled by a gallery of clowns who might one day be my colleagues, and I couldn`t think of any animals at all, circus types or otherwise, far less which one ranked as a favorite.

Oh, sure. I can think of them now. Elephants and tigers, lions, dogs and ponies, gorillas . . . Anybody can think of them now.

But during an audition to become a Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus clown? Forget it.

All coherence was lost to the sound of my own heart beating and my mind refused to process the normal, everyday words that came my way. (Animal? What`s an animal? Um, I`ll probably think of an animal in a minute . . . )

Well, you can`t stand there immobilized in the spotlight forever, although I began to think that I might, so I grasped at a straw and launched into my not- ready-for-prime-time imitation of a giraffe.

A giraffe, of all things!

Much to my surprise, response from the assembled clowns was loud and gratifying: Cheers! Wild applause! Shouts of laughter! Foot stomping and knee slapping!

This all may have been a result of the clowns` natural relief that there wouldn`t be a short, terrified woman standing paralyzed in Ring 2 whenever the circus performed in the future, but I chose to regard it as gratifying nevertheless.

Maybe it was the spotlights that scared me, even though the vast stands were empty. My only audience was friendly (if somewhat on the bizarre side) and sitting so close I could trip on their pillow-sized shoes. And I did, too.

I also tripped over my own size fives. Constantly.

I mean, I`ve got news for you. You know all those clowns you see clowning around in the circus -- riding bikes whose wheels don`t match, falling down, climbing ladders that aren`t leaning on anything, jumping into each others` arms and falling down again -- those clowns? Well, it isn`t as easy as they make it look.

It was midafternoon in the Miami Beach Convention Center, a break between performances of the circus Friday, and auditions were open for admission to clown college, The Institute of Higher Hilarity, northwest of here in Venice.

Following the success of my really terrible giraffe imitation (Why did I think of a giraffe? Is there an animal more utterly lacking in personality and characteristics than a giraffe? Of course there isn`t.), I started to get more comfortable in Ring 2.

There was the imitation tightrope walk, the pick-an-apple-from-the-tall-tree routine, the pants-split-with-the-deep-bow trick . . .

Tanya Nelson of Homestead, a woman of just my age and height, was another candidate for clown college, and we became partners to learn some real clown routines.

There`s the one where we see each other across the ring and hasten -- with hands outstretched -- to greet one another, only to pass, and repass, and repass, in the center of the ring, missing the handshakes by inches, hamming it up with surprise and bafflement at each near miss.

We were great. Or at least pretty good. Or at least we had a such a great time, we thought we were pretty good.

Next, the Comedy Slap. This is the one where one clown pretends to slap another clown and, at the sound of a mighty crack, the slapee reels back, staggering from the supposed impact. Alternating as slapper and slapee, we got pretty good at that, too. This is the life, huh?

Then suddenly it was all over. Somehow, an hour had passed, at doubletime, and it was back to real life. No more spotlight.

I left gracefully, stumbling over the edge of Ring 2 and falling to my knees. They said they`d call and let me know.

You know those clowns you see in the circus -- riding bikes whose wheels don`t match, falling down, jumping into each others` arms? Well, it isn`t as easy as they make it look.